TOW THE LINE - AN INTERVIEW WITH Curtis Lynch Jr.
Curtis: So sorry that it’s taken so long, weirdly enough even though we are in a pandemic it’s busy as ever! It’s crazy!
Jack: No yea it both makes sense and doesn’t make sense, cause you have more time to basically work on everything now, right?
Curtis: Yes, yes, there’s a ton of things to do, a ton of calls. Plus, February is Reggae Month, so every day is a busy day in Reggae Month. Thank you for wanting to interview me, I really appreciate it.
Jack: No problem, man you worked on one of my favorite Damon songs, so I’m really happy to be talking to you!
Curtis: Oh, wonderful!
Jack: So, let’s start this out. What inspired you to start making music? Any inspirations/influences?
Curtis: I think my mum inspired me to start actually. Well, my parents were record buyers, although I didn’t realize it at the time, we had great music in the house. We would have a lot of reggae music, a lot of Gregory Issacs, a lot of Dennis Brown, some Burning Spear… we actually didn’t have that much Bob (Marley) now that I think of it. We also had quite a lot soul music, cause my mum was a lover of soul music, we had some Marvin Gaye and Motown, lot of Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, I had some nice music growing up. In terms of being inspired, we would have house parties and apparently, I was a DJ at some of them as a 3 or 4 year old, my mum would have to tell you some more about that later. I was always involved in music somehow. I was in the car one time and I heard “Pirate’s Anthem” by Shabba Ranks & Home T & Cocoa T, and I remember thinking to myself, “I don’t want to be any of those artists, I want to be the man that made that song.” I just thought it was amazing, and I kind of went down that road… I never saw myself as an artist, ever, I always liked the idea of being behind the scenes, making the music, and that song was a huge inspiration for me becoming a producer.
Jack: That’s an amazing and unique perspective… most people don’t wanna be the person who makes it, they wanna be the star. But like, the person who produces or makes the track is always the reason it’s cool to me.
Curtis: Yea, what I always found interesting, and I didn’t even know what a producer was at the time, but I always loved the idea of things being put together for someone to sing on it. The person or people who have to do that, they were the champions. To this day, I don’t get artist struck, I get producer struck. I can be quite speechless sometimes cause if I meet someone like that, I could be in awe of them.
Jack: Yea, like you said, producers are really the unsung hero of all of this.
Curtis: Yea, I think that we are definitely the bridge between the artist and the label, we bring a lot of the musicians together. I really respect the producers, but I also really love a songwriter that can convey your feelings. They don’t know you, but if they can convey your feelings within 3 minutes of a song, they’re a genius. Like, Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.” What a song! What an amazing song! Now, I’ve never been sectioned, I’m quite sane of mind, but I can relate to that song a lot. I think it’s amazing, the way they’ve written it, the way he performed it, the lyrics, all amazing to me.
Jack: Oh, 100% I think Gnarls Barkley are super slept on. Both those albums are phenomenal.
Curtis: Oh, absolutely. It’s an unbelievable idea, so quirky. I’ve worked with the Gorillaz, so I kind of like things that are out of the box but are still so soulful and full of vibes. Gnarls Barkley are full of that stuff.
Jack: I’m liking who you been name checking, all the reggae and the soul and Gnarls, good stuff.
Curtis: (laughs) Nice one.
Jack: No yea it both makes sense and doesn’t make sense, cause you have more time to basically work on everything now, right?
Curtis: Yes, yes, there’s a ton of things to do, a ton of calls. Plus, February is Reggae Month, so every day is a busy day in Reggae Month. Thank you for wanting to interview me, I really appreciate it.
Jack: No problem, man you worked on one of my favorite Damon songs, so I’m really happy to be talking to you!
Curtis: Oh, wonderful!
Jack: So, let’s start this out. What inspired you to start making music? Any inspirations/influences?
Curtis: I think my mum inspired me to start actually. Well, my parents were record buyers, although I didn’t realize it at the time, we had great music in the house. We would have a lot of reggae music, a lot of Gregory Issacs, a lot of Dennis Brown, some Burning Spear… we actually didn’t have that much Bob (Marley) now that I think of it. We also had quite a lot soul music, cause my mum was a lover of soul music, we had some Marvin Gaye and Motown, lot of Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, I had some nice music growing up. In terms of being inspired, we would have house parties and apparently, I was a DJ at some of them as a 3 or 4 year old, my mum would have to tell you some more about that later. I was always involved in music somehow. I was in the car one time and I heard “Pirate’s Anthem” by Shabba Ranks & Home T & Cocoa T, and I remember thinking to myself, “I don’t want to be any of those artists, I want to be the man that made that song.” I just thought it was amazing, and I kind of went down that road… I never saw myself as an artist, ever, I always liked the idea of being behind the scenes, making the music, and that song was a huge inspiration for me becoming a producer.
Jack: That’s an amazing and unique perspective… most people don’t wanna be the person who makes it, they wanna be the star. But like, the person who produces or makes the track is always the reason it’s cool to me.
Curtis: Yea, what I always found interesting, and I didn’t even know what a producer was at the time, but I always loved the idea of things being put together for someone to sing on it. The person or people who have to do that, they were the champions. To this day, I don’t get artist struck, I get producer struck. I can be quite speechless sometimes cause if I meet someone like that, I could be in awe of them.
Jack: Yea, like you said, producers are really the unsung hero of all of this.
Curtis: Yea, I think that we are definitely the bridge between the artist and the label, we bring a lot of the musicians together. I really respect the producers, but I also really love a songwriter that can convey your feelings. They don’t know you, but if they can convey your feelings within 3 minutes of a song, they’re a genius. Like, Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.” What a song! What an amazing song! Now, I’ve never been sectioned, I’m quite sane of mind, but I can relate to that song a lot. I think it’s amazing, the way they’ve written it, the way he performed it, the lyrics, all amazing to me.
Jack: Oh, 100% I think Gnarls Barkley are super slept on. Both those albums are phenomenal.
Curtis: Oh, absolutely. It’s an unbelievable idea, so quirky. I’ve worked with the Gorillaz, so I kind of like things that are out of the box but are still so soulful and full of vibes. Gnarls Barkley are full of that stuff.
Jack: I’m liking who you been name checking, all the reggae and the soul and Gnarls, good stuff.
Curtis: (laughs) Nice one.
Jack: Tell us about “Necessary Mayhem”, the label that you run. What made you decide to start a label and what is your mission statement for it?
Curtis: Well, the thing about reggae and production, at that time I realized that the best producers had their own label. I grew up with like King Jammy, Gussie Clarke, Bunny Lee; they all got their own labels, and they are in charge. So, I never wanted to be on a major label, I just wanted to have my own label and run it myself. As I was growing up and making my way through the industry, I got really into jungle and drum and bass, and they all got their own labels as well. It felt natural for me to do it, and the mission at the time for me when I first started it… well it started off as a hobby actually. I had tried doing other labels before that, and then I ended up putting them to the side for this one. With this label in particular, I had grown as a producer and I wanted to bridge the old and the new. I was working with a lot of the older artists like Tippa Irie and Top Cat and mixing them in with a lot of the newer Jamaican artists at the time like Etona, Busy Signal and Tarrus Riley. I still have that ethos now really, the old with the new, it’s as fun as ever to be honest.
Jack: That sounds like an amazing day to day thing to do. Let’s get into your work with Damon now. How did you meet Damon Albarn and end up getting drafted into the Gorillaz project?
Curtis: So, this is a funny story. At the time, I had a song called “Thinking Of You”, and the song started a bidding war between various record companies. I had taken it to Parlophone for Miles Leonard alongside various other places, and basically the song ended up at Telstar cause at the time Craig David was there, and there was so much buzz going on there, so I was sold on it as the home for the track. I was very torn on it because I liked Miles and how could I say no to Parlophone? Regardless, I thought he would never speak to me again, but I got a call from Miles and he called me in for a meeting. I didn’t know what to expect, and he asked if I knew Damon of Blur. So, I said, “Yea of course, they’re one of the biggest bands in the country, if not the world.” So, Miles then said, “Well, Damon’s working on this project, it’s a cartoon band thing that he’s working on.” And at the time, Miles is funny cause Miles didn’t seem overjoyed about the whole thing, he just wanted another Blur record. So, he continues like, “Look, he wants to do this, and we trust him. He wants a reggae influence on some of the songs, would you be interested?” So, I said, “Yea of course.” It sounded cool to me straight away, so I was interested. Then I had to have a meeting with Damon at a coffee shop round the corner from Middle Row Records. It was cool, he was glad to have me on board, he told me what he was working on. We spoke about the kind of vibes he was looking for which was like an old school reggae kind of vibe, and that’s me all day long, so I can do that. So, yea, that’s how it was born, that’s how it started.
Jack: That sounds like an amazing couple of phone calls and meetings to have!
Curtis: Very weird, yea, I was waiting for someone to jump out and say, “I was only joking.” It does seem strange, good strange. But it didn’t stop there, the whole journey was like that to be honest. From the start of the project to the end of the project, it was an amazing whirlwind of a journey. It’s definitely one of the best things I’ve done definitely.
Jack: Can you recall what year you were initially working with Damon? A lot of the sessions from that record are sort of steeped in secrecy, we don’t really know a lot about the first bunch of sessions for the “Gorillaz” record.
Curtis: I know they started work on it in the 90’s, but my song didn’t come out until around 2000 or so. So, I got drafted in after I got back from being on the road for that, doing shows around Europe and such.
Jack: So, you worked on one of my favorite songs ever, “Dracula”, a unique song in the Gorillaz catalogue notable for its very heavy dub reggae sound. Tell us about the recording and writing process for this track. How did this song come about?
Curtis: What was interesting about it, is that I was called on for sessions at random. I remember one of them might have been about 10 PM. I got to the studio, and the word “chaos” comes to mind describing it. There were horns in one section of the studio, Jamie was there, there were people filming it the whole time (editor’s note: Ceri if you’re reading this, release the lost “Bananaz” footage of them making “Dracula”) and Damon was sort of orchestrating everything. I remember for this session, I started the song off with the drum pattern, I kind of just went in and got to it cause I kind of had in mind already what could come out of this. So, I was laying the track down with a drum and a bass line with some various dub reggae sound effects, and the thing is that I didn’t hear Damon’s vocals until way down the line. By time I heard it, my bass was replaced with a live one by Junior Dan, and the drums and effects you hear are exactly as I put them down with some live instrumentation on top of them. When I heard his vocal part, I found it quite mesmerizing, I would never have gone there with the vocal but it sounded amazing.
Jack: No yea, it’s really sort of like hypnotizing, isn’t it?
Curtis: Yes, it’s very haunting. The horns are very English ska, they got a Specials vibe to them, which is what we had spoken about originally anyway at the coffee shop, and it was exactly that. To hear it at the end was amazing actually, I did a lot of stuff like that with Damon. We would go in and make a skeleton, and he would love it. But everything he did, was always so much better than I thought it would be. When I came back in and would hear the playback months later down the line, it was a real joy.
Jack: So, you did multiple songs at these sessions?
Curtis: Yea, there was about three songs we did. You reminded me, I got to go find the other two because I have them. We worked on about three songs across three sessions, but he chose “Dracula” as the best one out of the two that he seriously considered.
Jack: Damn, I would love to hear those other two.
Curtis: Me too man, thank you.
Jack: You also did a remix of the first album’s penultimate track "Slow Country" that was only pressed on a few obscure vinyl releases. What was the story behind this remix, and how did it end up with such a limited release?
Curtis: At the time, that and “Clint Eastwood” were seriously considered to be singles. I was also asked to do a remix for what was gonna be their first single, “Tomorrow Comes Today”, alongside “Slow Country.” In terms of the mixes I had done, I was getting good airplay and interest in the club and dancehall community. So, it was a marketing decision from Parlophone to have a set of remixes for some of the singles to not only get the songs airplay in more clubs and dancehall places, but to work out which singles got the most plays and could then be moved to a much more public release. That’s what happened with “Clint Eastwood” which I think got more popular initially through its remix by Ed Case and Sweetie Irie, so they ended up going with that one, and not “Slow Country.”
Jack: Wow. So, although “Dracula” is included on international editions of the album, the song was not included on the UK release of the record, which is notably where the band are from. Any particular reason as to why this song was cut from the album in the UK, but not in other countries?
Curtis: (laughs) I have no idea. I remember when it came out on the flip side of the “Clint Eastwood” single and I got really excited to hear where it would go on the actual album, and then it wasn’t on there. I couldn’t believe it, I was like, “What’s happened here?!” I was really surprised it wasn’t there, but then I found out it was on every other version of the album. So, I never worked out why it was cut here, but I was ok. It came out on the biggest single, and its on all the other versions of the album. They could have chosen any other song to be on the flip side of the “Clint Eastwood” package but they chose that one. I was upset about it at first, but other than that it was cool. It’s their project, at the end of the day I was a part of it, and I was just happy for that to be honest.
Jack: Yea, I get that. People love this song for real man, a lot of people consider it to be a part of the main album, and I think the band played it a lot at the time. They even played it at a live stream they did recently and that was like the first time they played it in like 20 years man!
Curtis: Oh wow! I need to go and find that live stream, is that on YouTube anywhere?
Jack: I think so, yea!
Curtis: I’m gonna need to go look at that.
Jack: Yea, on that single they made a little video for it too!
Curtis: (laughs) Oh wow, I have never seen that.
Jack: It’s really weird and trippy, it’s like a giant robot ape walking through a CGI landscape. It’s a very weird video.
Curtis: I didn’t know that, that’s on the single DVD you say?
Jack: I believe it is yes.
Curtis: Is it up on YouTube anywhere?
Jack: Yes, I think it is.
Curtis: Man, you are teaching me some things here. The funny thing for me as a producer is that once the track is done, I’m on to the next one. I speak to people and they tell me places where my song has shown up and I never know these things cause I’m so busy!
Jack: It’s a job to have right? It’s almost like the songs take a life of their own without you knowing.
Curtis: Yea, that’s beautiful to know.
Jack: Given that you often do reggae remixes of songs for other artists, did you ever get contacted by Damon Albarn to work with him after these two works?
Curtis: Ya know what, I haven’t. But we run into each other a lot in various places. We have that conversation a lot, “We must do more”, et cetera, et cetera. So, I’m pretty sure we will. We’re good as peeps, I know that he likes to keep it fresh, he likes to keep it moving. I’m probably due a phone call any minute now to come and do some more bits and pieces.
Jack: That’s good, cause I need some more of that weird Specials dub in my life for real.
Curtis: Yea, definitely. It’s interesting cause that style is so hard to recreate. When I mention this song, a lot of people ask me, “Why don’t I just do something like that?” But, it’s not that easy for some reason. It’s a special kind of sound.
Jack: No, yea, it is. As an artist, I keep trying to make this song that has that Specials dub vibe. I can get there in the bassline, but I can never get there in any of the other elements. It’s very upsetting, it’s a goal.
Curtis: (laughs) Yea, right? Think about how I feel having done it before, and not being able to do it again.
Jack: (laughs) So, we’re getting near the end here so I gotta ask. What are you working on right now? I know you’ve been telling me you’ve been having a busy month recently. Anything you want to tell us about?
Curtis: I’m working on a lot of instrumentals at the moment actually. I feel that I’m at that stage in my career where I just want to make beautiful music. I’ve got string sections in, and arrangers, it’s a very different way that I’m currently making music, and I’m enjoying it. It’s almost like when I did “Dracula” actually, I’m doing my part which is the hard edge reggae part and I’m then sending it to other people to make sure the top line is beautiful. I’m not rushing it, I’ve got no immediate plan for release, I’m just making it and putting it together before I put it out.
Jack: That sounds very exciting! For those of our readers who aren’t familiar with your work outside of Damon Albarn, what do you wish to tell them? Any specific songs or highlights you want to share? What do you want the world to know about Curtis Lynch, Jr.?
Curtis: I’m a musician, I’m a producer, I love music, but I’m a fan of music more than anything else. When I was working with Amy Winehouse, she got me into a lot of Russian production, I just love music of all kinds ya know? In terms of your readers, I know that they are fans of music and some of them must be budding or established musicians or producers, so for them I have to say, love your art. Continue with your art, love it, don’t let anybody change your ideas from what you have. Everyone’s unique, everybody’s got their own unique sound, and music speaks its own language.
Jack: That’s beautiful man.
Curtis: Thank you, it’s the truth, the triple truth.
Don't forget to listen to the specially curated Hip Mix based on the interview!